A trio of young falcons born atop a 35-storey building in Melbourne\u2019s CBD have taken flight for the first time, with the take-off captured on a livestream for the world to see.<\/p>\n
The three peregrine falcons \u2013 two females and one male \u2013 fledged late last week, with the footage of their first flight posted on Instagram by non-profit organisation Bird Life Australia. The last falcon took flight shortly after 9am on Saturday for the second time \u2013 after returning to the ledge in a crash landing the day before.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter weeks of watching them grow on the 24-hour livestream, the peregrine falcon trio have finally taken their first flights over Melbourne CBD \u2013 with one young falcon opting for a dramatic crash-landing comeback before nailing a successful flight a couple of days later,\u201d the caption stated.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOver the next few weeks, the fledglings will stay close to the city. Their parents will continue to feed them until they\u2019re confident enough to make their very first hunt \u2013 and then they\u2019ll soar off into the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The three peregrine chicks hatched at the end of September<\/a> and early October with thousands of people tuning in to a 24-hour livestream<\/a> set up on a ledge 150m above Melbourne\u2019s 367 Collins Street as part of the Victorian Peregrine Project (VPP), established by peregrine expert Dr Victor Hurley, in partnership with the building\u2019s owner Mirvac.<\/p>\n The peregrine falcon livestream \u2013 pictured here in 2020 \u2013 has been running yearly since 2017, with the nest first discovered in the 1990s. Photograph: Melbourne CBD Falcons<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re a bit slow to fledge and that\u2019s a good thing because the longer they take, the wing feathers are still growing so the bigger the wing surface area\u201d Hurley said. \u201c[The parents] dramatically drop the amount of food they provide and the number of meals they can eat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo they\u2019re lighter. Having bigger wings is like having training wheels \u2026 it was notable that they were a bit slow at fledging but not excessively, just three or four days later than I would have expected, which of course builds the tension and the drama.\u201d<\/p>\n Hurley said the birds were confident when they took flight on Saturday and landed safely on another building. He said falcons typically do not return to the ledge once they have taken flight.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved watching this reunion today! Made me shed a few tears!\u201d one YouTube commenter said.<\/p>\n \u201cAwe, I\u2019m going to miss them. This nest gave me many laughs with their personalities,\u201d another wrote.<\/p>\n The livestream \u2013 which ends on Monday \u2013 has been running yearly since 2017, with the nest first discovered in the 1990s. A Facebook group of fans of the falcons has more than 56,000 members.<\/p>\n The peregrine falcon rose from 28th position in the first round to 14th in the penultimate round of the Bird of the year competition in October, off the back of the falcons hatching, but it wasn\u2019t enough to make the final round. Ultimately, the tawny frogmouth took the title this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n The livestream will return next year when the breeding season commences again.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for now, good luck, young falcons,\u201d Bird Life Australia said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trio of young falcons born atop a 35-storey building in Melbourne\u2019s CBD have taken flight for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-294485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}